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Friday, May 22, 2015

Canadian Academics in Space

By Chuck Black

While Canadian aerospace and space firms contribute useful amounts of research and development funding, this private sector money is normally bolstered with larger pots of Federal, provincial and academic funding.

Below is the 2015 listing of some of the better recognized academic institutions and organizations for space and aerospace focused firms to collaborate with, learn from and maybe even hire a few of their graduates.

The Association of Universities and Colleges (AUCC) - As the "voice of Canadian universities," at least according to their website, the AUCC is a useful first stop when building an inventory of Canadian educational facilities focused on science, engineering, space activities or anything else. According to the AUCC, "Canadian universities educate more than 1.5 million students annually. They perform more than one-third of Canada’s research and development. And, as a $30 billion enterprise, our universities generate economic wealth in communities across Canada." AUCC also publishes the annual "Directory of Canadian Universities," the 2014 edition of which lists "97 universities and university degree level colleges in a consistent, indexed format."

The Canada's Top 50 Research Colleges List - An annually updated listing of Canada's top research colleges tracked by amounts spent and areas of expertise. Designed to educate those who believe that the only true research is done in universities.

Centennial College - The Centennial College Centre of Aerospace Training and Education (CATE) provides several post-secondary, apprenticeship, corporate and secondary school co-operative programs in aerospace manufacturing and support. The facility received $26Mln CDN from the Ontario government to relocate these programs to the former de Havilland aircraft manufacturing centre at Downsview Park, in June 2014. The new facility will be part of a larger aerospace training and research hub being developed for the commercialization of new technologies.

The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics- A basic research centre dedicated to "exploring the world around us at its most fundamental level." The institute supports over 80 resident researchers and a vigorous visitor program of cross-disciplinary research in condensed matter, cosmology & gravitation, particle physics, quantum foundations, quantum gravity, quantum information theory, superstring theory and other related areas.

Polytechnics Canada - The "voice of leading research-intensive, publicly funded colleges and institutes of technology." Strong advocate for moving at least some of the government money focused on R&D out of universities and into community colleges and trade schools.

Royal Military College (RMC) - The Department of Space Science program at RMC offers both undergraduate and graduate programs with specialization focused around theoretical, experimental and observational aspects of space science: from space mission analysis, mission and payload design, remote sensing, satellite tracking, ionospheric physics and space weather, and astronomy and astrophysics.

Ryerson University - Possesses a well respected Engineering Graduate Program, which focuses on aerodynamics and propulsion, aerospace structures, manufacturing, avionics and aerospace systems and has some overlap in technologies, with the space industry.